JS Lecture Series - Natan Sznaider - Hannah Arendt and the Dilemmas of Jewish Politics: The Case of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction
The Central European University
Jewish Studies Program
cordially invites you to a lecture by
Natan Sznaider
Academic College of Tel-Aviv, Israel
Hannah Arendt and the Dilemmas of Jewish Politics: The Case of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction
My presentation tries to come to terms with Jewish politics right after the Holocaust. Usually, the understanding of Jewish politics after World War II is framed around the Jewish state of Israel and its meaning. This presentation will provide another angle, connecting Jewish particular politics with current concerns about cosmopolitan politics like human rights, genocide, and international law.
I pay especially attention to Hannah Arendt’s practical work for “Jewish Cultural Reconstruction” (JCR). This organization was founded 1944 in order to re-define legally and morally the concept of Jewish cultural property, and to deal on a practical level with heirless Jewish cultural property stolen by the Nazis and liberated by the Allies. By looking more closely at the goals and struggles of this organization I will be able to evoke the urgency of Jewish politics that started immediately in 1945, and try to explain how the various positions of Jewish intellectuals shaped Jewish and Israeli politics in the years to come.
Tuesday, October 14 at 6 p.m.
In Faculty Tower - 609
Natan Sznaider is Full Professor of Sociology at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo in Israel. His research interests over the past few years have centered on giving a sociological account of processes of trauma and victimhood as well as on the Jewish political theory of Hannah Arendt. His publications include Jewish Memory and the Cosmopolitan Order (2011) and The Compassionate Temperament: Care and Cruelty in Modern Society (2000). He co-authored (with Daniel Levy)Human Rights and Memory (2009) and Erinnerung im Globalen Zeitalter: Der Holocaust (2001), which was expanded and translated into English as The Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age(2006).
A reception will follow
